The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

these ideas may be expressed either as similes or as
metaphors; those which succeed as metaphors will obviously do well
also as similes, and similes, with the explanation omitted, will
appear as metaphors. But the proportional metaphor must always
apply reciprocally to either of its co-ordinate terms. For
instance, if a drinking-bowl is the shield of Dionysus, a shield
may fittingly be called the drinking-bowl of Ares.
5
    Such, then, are the ingredients of which speech is composed. The
foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls
under five heads. (1) First, the proper use of connecting words,
and the arrangement of them in the natural sequence which some of
them require. For instance, the connective ‘men’ (e.g. ego men)
requires the correlative de (e.g. o de). The answering word must be
brought in before the first has been forgotten, and not be widely
separated from it; nor, except in the few cases where this is
appropriate, is another connective to be introduced before the one
required. Consider the sentence, ‘But as soon as he told me (for
Cleon had come begging and praying), took them along and set out.’
In this sentence many connecting words are inserted in front of the
one required to complete the sense; and if there is a long interval
before ‘set out’, the result is obscurity. One merit, then, of good
style lies in the right use of connecting words. (2) The second
lies in calling things by their own special names and not by vague
general ones. (3) The third is to avoid ambiguities; unless,
indeed, you definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have
nothing to say but are pretending to mean something. Such people
are apt to put that sort of thing into verse. Empedocles, for
instance, by his long circumlocutions imposes on his hearers; these
are affected in the same way as most people are when they listen to
diviners, whose ambiguous utterances are received with nods of
acquiescence—
Croesus by crossing the Halys will ruin a mighty realm.
    Diviners use these vague generalities about the matter in hand
because their predictions are thus, as a rule, less likely to be
falsified. We are more likely to be right, in the game of ‘odd and
even’, if we simply guess ‘even’ or ‘odd’ than if we guess at the
actual number; and the oracle-monger is more likely to be right if
he simply says that a thing will happen than if he says when it
will happen, and therefore he refuses to add a definite date. All
these ambiguities have the same sort of effect, and are to be
avoided unless we have some such object as that mentioned. (4) A
fourth rule is to observe Protagoras’ classification of nouns into
male, female, and inanimate; for these distinctions also must be
correctly given. ‘Upon her arrival she said her say and departed (e
d elthousa kai dialechtheisa ocheto).’ (5) A fifth rule is to
express plurality, fewness, and unity by the correct wording, e.g.
‘Having come, they struck me (oi d elthontes etupton me).’
    It is a general rule that a written composition should be easy
to read and therefore easy to deliver. This cannot be so where
there are many connecting words or clauses, or where punctuation is
hard, as in the writings of Heracleitus. To punctuate Heracleitus
is no easy task, because we often cannot tell whether a particular
word belongs to what precedes or what follows it. Thus, at the
outset of his treatise he says, ‘Though this truth is always men
understand it not’, where it is not clear with which of the two
clauses the word ‘always’ should be joined by the punctuation.
Further, the following fact leads to solecism, viz. that the
sentence does not work out properly if you annex to two terms a
third which does not suit them both. Thus either ‘sound’ or
‘colour’ will fail to work out properly with some verbs: ‘perceive’
will apply to both, ‘see’ will not. Obscurity is also caused if,
when you intend to insert a number of details, you do not first
make your meaning clear; for instance, if you say, ‘I meant, after
telling him this, that and the other thing, to set out’, rather
than something of this kind ‘I meant to set out after telling him;
then this, that, and the other thing occurred.’
6
    The following suggestions will help to give your language
impressiveness. (1) Describe a thing instead of naming it: do not
say ‘circle’, but ‘that surface which extends equally from the
middle every way’. To achieve conciseness,